EXZENYA

1. How did writing Till I’m Drunk & Confused help you process the personal truths you explore in the lyrics?

Writing this song helped me process a set of personal truths I’ve observed my entire life — truths about patterns, about coping, and about the way alcohol becomes both a shield and a weapon in people’s emotional worlds.
My biological father was a functional alcoholic — brilliant, intelligent, respected in his field — yet completely unequipped to cope with relationships in a healthy way. He wasn’t abusive; he was avoidant. Over time, the drinking isolated him from his friends, then from my mother, and eventually from us as kids. He loved us, but only in these fragmented, sporadic intervals that always left emotional gaps behind.
When he retired, the drinking increased. His wife at the time had the same pattern — cutting off friends, isolating from family, burying things instead of facing them. They both passed away in 2022, and while alcohol wasn’t the direct cause, it certainly shaped the architecture of their lives. It slowly carved them into smaller versions of themselves.
And I’ve watched echoes of that cycle play out in younger generations too — my own boys, growing into adulthood, still learning emotional maturity, sometimes using drinking as a release valve… only to end up embarrassed, ashamed, or stuck in the loop of trying to forget what drinking caused in the first place. That same cycle appears in countless adults I’ve known: good people who carry pain, try to drown it, repeat mistakes, and unintentionally damage their relationships.
So when I wrote Till I’m Drunk & Confused, I wasn’t writing about one person or one story. I was writing about the pattern itself — the inherited emotional blueprint that so many people live inside without realizing it. The song became a way for me to observe that cycle from a psychological distance but with emotional truth. It allowed me to take years of watching, learning, and understanding human behavior and place it into a character who represents the weight of regret, denial, longing, and avoidance that alcohol often masks.
Writing it didn’t just help me process the pattern — it helped me honor it, examine it, and show the human side of it without judgment.

2. Q What part of the emotional cycle in the song was the hardest for you to put into words?

For me, the writing itself flowed almost instantly. I tend to see songs as little films running in my mind — scenes, emotions, memories, each character playing out their truth — so the lyrics came together in just a few minutes. When I write from emotional observation or personal confession, the stories arrive already formed, almost like they’ve been waiting their turn.
So the challenge wasn’t finding the words.
The challenge was capturing the drift — that subtle slide between “I’m fine” and “I’m falling apart.”
There’s a moment in the song where I laugh a little before the line “When it’s you and me, life is so fun…” and that wasn’t planned. It came out naturally, because that’s exactly how memory behaves. We remember the bright things first — the laughter, the warmth, the versions of someone we once loved that still feel alive inside us. That moment of brightness makes the fall back into “Without you here, I’m better off with no one” even sharper. It mirrors how people actually experience loss: joy and grief tangled together.
But the part that required the most care was the ending —
“It’s so sad to see you’re the one thing I had to lose to learn the truth about me.”
That line carries a heavy emotional weight, because taking responsibility is often the hardest point in anyone’s emotional cycle. I’ve seen many people in my life repeat patterns endlessly — my father, his wife, friends, even my own children as they navigate early adulthood. Most people never reach that moment of clarity where denial breaks, and they finally see their own reflection honestly.
I didn’t want the ending to lecture, or accuse, or moralize.
I wanted it to feel like that rare, fragile instant when a human being finally stops running from their own truth. When the excuses fall away. When the emotional fog lifts and accountability appears — not as punishment, but as recognition.
Writing that shift — guiding the listener from denial to self-awareness without pointing a finger — that was the real balancing act.
Because clarity is quiet, but it hits with incredible force.

3. Q The song deals with denial in a very honest way. How did you approach expressing that without holding back?

Denial is one of those emotional states that people live in long before they ever recognize it, so I wanted to express it in a way that felt real, not exaggerated. When I write, I’m not trying to dramatize the emotion — I’m trying to show how it actually behaves in people. And denial usually doesn’t arrive with fireworks; it hides in small phrases, excuses, and moments where someone tries to convince themselves, and everyone else, that they’re fine.
My approach came from years of observing how people move through their own cycles — my father, friends, people I’ve known, even younger generations figuring out who they are. I’ve seen how alcohol becomes both an escape and a trap, how someone can repeat the same patterns, and how the truth only breaks through when they can’t outrun themselves anymore. That understanding helped me write denial in a way that feels human instead of theatrical.
So instead of holding back, I leaned into the contradictions.
The character in the song swings between brightness and collapse — laughing for a moment when memory feels warm, then dropping straight into the weight of loneliness. That’s how denial actually works: a quick pivot, a flash of distraction, a sudden fall back into the truth.
But the key was not judging the character.
People don’t usually recognize their own denial while they’re in it, and I wanted to honor that. My goal wasn’t to expose them — it was to let listeners sit with the emotional drift and recognize themselves in it. That honesty comes from allowing the emotion to exist exactly as it is, without softening it, without preaching, and without trying to guide the listener to a conclusion.
Denial is raw, often quiet, and deeply human — so I wrote it the same way.

4. Q In the lyrics, you show a deep sense of regret. Was there a specific moment that pushed you to write about it so openly?

Regret isn’t something that arrives in one dramatic moment — it can hit you in the middle of the afternoon just as easily as it can at 2 a.m. What pushed me to write about it so openly wasn’t a single experience, but years of watching people I love move through their own cycles of denial, consequences, accountability, and eventual growth.
A lot of that came from watching my own children become young adults. They’re in their twenties, still figuring out who they are, still learning how to navigate emotion, responsibility, and the fallout of their choices — especially choices made while drinking or reacting impulsively. As a mother, it’s incredibly hard to watch your kids struggle emotionally. They make mistakes, they feel ashamed of things they’ve said or done, they wrestle with regret, and then they repeat the cycle until something finally clicks.
What I’ve learned is that regret is strongest in the quiet moments — when the bravado wears off, when the “I’m fine” mask slips, when the heart finally tells the truth. I’ve seen my boys go through that shift: denying everything, trying to be tough because they’re men, then breaking down, then blaming everything around them, and finally reaching the point where they admit, “I think I caused this.” That’s a huge emotional milestone, and not an easy one.
My relationship with my kids is close, so they talk to me about these things. But even then, I have to be careful not to overstep — to listen without lecturing, to support without controlling, to guide without making them feel judged. It’s a delicate balance, especially when you can see exactly where the pattern is heading long before they do. They need to walk to their own clarity.
So the regret in the song doesn’t come from one personal moment — it comes from observing that universal pattern in people I care deeply about. It comes from seeing how hard it is for anyone, especially young men, to process emotions they were never taught how to hold. Writing openly about regret felt natural because I’ve witnessed the rawness of it up close — the hurt, the shame, the realization, and the desire to do better.
The song simply gives that emotional truth somewhere to live.

5. Q You describe feeling lost without this person. How did you manage to translate that emptiness into simple, clear language?

What made the language feel simple is that the emotion itself is universal. I didn’t have to invent anything — I’ve spent my whole life watching people move through loss in different forms. My father, my kids as they’re growing into adulthood, close friends, and even people I’ve met only once in passing have shared their stories with me. And even though every story is deeply personal, the emotional architecture underneath is strikingly similar.
People lose relationships they weren’t ready to lose.
People push someone away without meaning to.
People lose partners, parents, or friends to illness or sudden tragedy.
And people lose someone because of their own behavior — drinking, denial, avoidance, or emotional shut-down.
Across all of those scenarios, there’s always a moment where the world feels hollow, where the absence becomes louder than the person ever was. I’ve heard that described so many different ways, but the core is always the same: a kind of quiet collapse, a feeling of being unanchored.
When I write, I visualize it like a film playing in my mind. Characters appear, emotions take shape, and I watch how they move through that emptiness. That’s where the clarity comes from — not from the complexity of the emotion, but from recognizing its simplicity. Loss doesn’t need flowery language; it needs honesty.
So the lines in the song weren’t crafted from one specific experience. They came from imagining all those human stories layered together, from seeing how people talk when they’re stripped of their defenses. Emptiness becomes simple when you focus on the truth of it — that raw moment when someone finally admits: “I don’t know who I am without you.”
That’s what guided the language. Just the emotional truth of what people feel right in the moment when everything falls quiet.

6. Q The repeated idea of being lost gives the song a looping feeling. Did you design the lyrics to reflect the emotional spiral?

Yes — absolutely. The looping structure was intentional, because that’s how real emotion behaves. People don’t feel something once and move on. Emotions cycle. They shift, break, return, soften, and then suddenly hit with full force again. We move through memories, flashes of clarity, moments of humor or warmth, and then we slip right back into the ache we thought we’d escaped. That’s a human process, not a linear one.
When I wrote this song, I knew I wanted to capture that emotional looping — the way someone can feel lost, then briefly distracted by a warm memory, then collapse right back into the same emptiness. That’s why the lyrics return to the same emotional space repeatedly. I wanted the listener to feel that spiral quietly happening inside the character.
In the writing, I visualize emotions like scenes in a film. A memory flickers, and for a moment the character feels something lighter — a laugh, a glimpse of who they were with that person — and then they’re pulled back into the reality of loss. That back-and-forth rhythm is how people actually process unresolved emotions, unanswered questions, and the aftermath of their own choices.
So the repetition isn’t just a stylistic choice — it mirrors how people work through heartbreak, denial, regret, and responsibility. We revisit the same emotional place again and again until something finally shifts. The song’s loop reflects that universal emotional spiral, where the heart keeps circling back until it finally understands what the mind has been avoiding.

7. Q You reflect on the joy of the relationship compared to the pain afterward. How important was that contrast when writing?

The contrast was everything, because that’s exactly how emotions work. Joy and despair aren’t separate chapters — they sit right on top of each other. When you lose someone, the first thing your mind does is reach backwards. You remember their laugh. You remember your laugh. You remember how good it felt just to be near them, how natural it was to hear their voice or feel their presence. And then it hits you that those moments are now only memories. You can’t touch them anymore. You can’t hear their voice. You can’t feel their comfort. That shift — from warmth to emptiness — is brutal, and it’s real.
That emotional whiplash is exactly why the contrast matters. Pain is sharper when you remember the sweetness that came before it. And the sweetness becomes almost haunting once you realize you can’t go back. That duality is what gives the confession its weight. If you only show the loss, it feels flat. If you only show the joy, it feels incomplete. But when you allow both to coexist — the memory of what was and the ache of what is — the emotional truth becomes undeniable.
So for me, the contrast isn’t just emotional; it’s structural. It’s the backbone of the storytelling. Without the joy, the loss has no weight. Without the loss, the joy has no meaning. Holding both at once is what makes the song feel human and grounded, because that’s exactly what people experience when they’re working through the aftermath of someone they deeply cared about.
I wanted to be honest about the contradiction, because that contradiction is real. People often reach for the very thing that hurts them — not always because they’re unaware, but because they’re desperate for anything that offers even a moment of relief. And sometimes they are unaware. Sometimes they’re in denial. Sometimes they simply don’t have the tools yet to cope in a healthier way. All of that is part of the emotional ecosystem this character is trapped in.
I didn’t want to glorify alcohol or demonize it. I just wanted to show the role it plays when someone is in pain. There are moments in life — in my own experience and in what I’ve seen in my family, my children, friends, and even strangers who have shared their stories with me — where the first instinct is to numb the hurt. A drink is often the easiest thing to reach for. But when it wears off, everything is heavier. Alcohol is a downer. Emotionally you crash. Physically you crash. And the problem you were trying to outrun is still sitting there waiting for you.
That cycle is universal. Some people use alcohol, some use drugs, some use behavior, distraction, or anything else that creates temporary distance from the wound. It’s not always addiction; sometimes it’s just a human attempt to buy time when the pain feels too sharp to sit with. But the emotional relief is short, and the consequences can be long.
So the balance in the song came from portraying that honestly. Alcohol isn’t the villain and it isn’t the escape — it’s the mechanism that shows where the character is emotionally. They aren’t drinking to have fun; they’re drinking because they don’t yet know how to face the truth sober. And that’s a moment many people recognize, whether they admit it out loud or not.

8. Q The song admits that alcohol caused many problems, yet it also becomes a coping method. How did you balance showing both sides?

I balanced it by looking at alcohol the way it actually functions in real life — not as a symbol, but as a pattern. Most people don’t start drinking because they’re in pain. They start because it’s fun. That first layer is joy, looseness, connection. But when fun gets out of hand, when lines get crossed, or when someone says something they can’t take back, the very thing that created the laughter becomes the source of trouble. I’ve watched that play out in my family, in my friends, and in people I’ve met in passing. It’s not always dramatic — sometimes it’s just that slow erosion of trust or awareness that drinking “too much” creates cracks in a relationship.
And then the emotional flip happens. After the harm is done, the same person reaches for alcohol again — not to celebrate this time, but to escape the consequences of the night before. There’s a psychology to that cycle. People think, Well, I felt good when I was drinking, so maybe if I drink now, I’ll feel better again. But drinking as coping is a completely different emotional experience than drinking for fun. When someone is hurting, alcohol doesn’t create joy; it amplifies the hurt that’s underneath. Instead of lifting them, it lowers them into the very feelings they’re trying to outrun.
So the balance came from portraying both truths:
– The version of alcohol people reach for when they’re carefree, and
– The version they reach for when they’re falling apart.
Both are real. Both exist in the same person. And both feed into the emotional spiral this song captures. I didn’t try to judge it or moralize it — I just presented it the way I’ve seen it unfold in real life. The contradictions are what make the character believable, because that’s exactly how humans behave when they don’t know what to do with their pain.

9. Q The desire for a do-over is strong in the lyrics. Did writing the song help you accept that some things can’t be redone?

If you had asked me this question years ago, I probably would’ve answered it differently. At 56, the idea of a “do-over” carries an entire lifetime behind it. I think about all the moments where I wish I could go back, say something different, make a better choice, or stop myself from causing harm — not only in relationships, but in every corner of my life. But the truth is, there is no time machine. What’s done is done, and you’re left sitting with the consequences of your actions and the consequences of your imagination, because pain has a way of replaying what can’t be fixed.
At some point, I had to accept that you can’t redo anything — not partially, not selectively, not even with the best intentions. The only thing you can do is decide what happens next. How do you repair what was broken? How do you rebuild something that cracked under pressure? And if the other person is willing, how do you show up differently so the pattern doesn’t repeat?
A lot of that perspective comes from watching my own children navigate their mistakes. Their regrets aren’t always tied to alcohol; sometimes it’s simply human error, emotional overwhelm, or youthful impulsivity. As their mother, watching them wrestle with regret is incredibly difficult. You want to protect them, guide them, soften their fall. But part of loving someone is letting them learn what responsibility feels like — and then being there to help them build something stronger out of the pieces.
Writing this song didn’t “teach” me that do-overs don’t exist — I already knew that — but it gave me a way to express the reality that everyone eventually has to face. You can’t erase what happened, but you can repair, you can grow, and you can change the conditions that created the pattern in the first place. The cracks never disappear completely. They stay in the foundation as reminders of what you came through and what you need to pay attention to going forward. But you can absolutely build something new on top of those cracks, and sometimes that structure becomes stronger than what was there before.
So the song became less about regret and more about recognition: accepting that you can’t redo the past, but you can take responsibility for it — and then choose a different outcome in the future.

10. Q You mention that alcohol fills the space left behind, even though it hurts you. What did you want listeners to feel in those moments?

I wanted listeners to feel the discomfort of that contradiction — the way people reach for alcohol as if it can fill the emptiness, even though it never actually does. It doesn’t fill a space; it numbs it. And for a few hours, numbing can feel like relief. If someone drinks past the point of clarity, the confusion becomes its own kind of escape. They can’t think clearly, they may not remember everything the next day, and for a brief moment their brain is too fogged to sit with the pain that started it all.
But that numbness is temporary, and when it fades, the hurt is still there — usually heavier. That’s the cycle I wanted to highlight. Not to shame anyone, but to bring awareness to how human it is to reach for whatever distracts us from what we don’t want to face. It’s a universal behavior, and in many places it’s even socially encouraged: “have a drink, take the edge off.” But emotionally, it’s an ineffective way of dealing with loss. It doesn’t heal anything; it often creates more damage.
What I wanted listeners to feel in those moments is the tension between what the character thinks will help and what actually happens. The numbing is real, but so is the aftermath. And for people predisposed to addictive patterns — like my own father was — those moments can spiral into something deeper and far more painful.
So the song doesn’t present alcohol as a villain or a solution. It shows it as a very human attempt to quiet a wound that is begging to be acknowledged. And I wanted listeners to sit inside that truth long enough to recognize themselves or someone they love — not to judge it, but to understand it.

11. Q The song shifts from denial to responsibility. When did that shift happen for you personally?

I can’t point to a single moment where responsibility “arrived” in my life. It’s happened in waves, at different stages, and usually in quiet, uncomfortable ways rather than dramatic ones. But the clearest shift came during my divorce. For a long time, I held onto the hope that things would work out. My ex was very good at giving me just enough of a glimmer to make me believe reconciliation was possible, and I shaped myself around that illusion. I blamed myself for everything that went wrong. I tried to change who I was, how I looked, how I behaved — all in the hope that it would somehow reverse what had already happened.
That period was heavy. I wasn’t eating or sleeping well, and I was using alcohol the same way many people do in moments like that: as a temporary way to quiet the hurt. But the pain always returned the next morning, sharper than before. Anyone who has lived through the end of a long, intertwined relationship knows that denial becomes its own habitat. You convince yourself that if you just do more, or become “better,” you can undo the loss. It took time for me to recognize that nothing I did would make him return, and nothing could rewrite the past.
The shift into responsibility wasn’t about taking blame for things I didn’t cause. It was about becoming aware of what I was doing to myself. I had to acknowledge that the ways I was coping were unhealthy — not because drinking made me irresponsible, but because numbing the pain was keeping me from seeing the truth clearly. I was breaking myself down even further at a time when I already felt shattered.
Responsibility, for me, meant accepting what was real: he wasn’t coming back, the relationship was over, and my well-being was now in my own hands. It meant choosing to stop feeding the denial and choosing to rebuild myself instead. That’s the same kind of shift the narrator in the song goes through — not a dramatic awakening, but a slow, reluctant acceptance that denial isn’t sustainable, and that healing only begins when you finally stop running from the truth.

12. Q How has writing Till I’m Drunk & Confused changed the way you view your past choices?

At this stage in my life, the way I look at my past is very different from how I would have answered this question years ago. Age changes the lens. Insight, maturity, and lived experience reshape how you remember your past, how you interpret your present, and how you imagine your future. Writing this song didn’t give me new answers as much as it reminded me to be gentler with myself about the choices I’ve made.
I’ve spent most of my life worrying about how others see me — replaying conversations, second-guessing decisions, stressing over things I didn’t say perfectly or didn’t handle the way I “should” have. And most of those fears never materialized, yet the worry still lived in me. That’s a pattern many people carry: we forgive others for their mistakes, but we punish ourselves relentlessly for our own.
Over time, I’ve come to understand myself better. I’ve realized that the emotions I feel aren’t unique or isolated — if I’m experiencing something, someone else out there is too. That awareness has helped me soften toward myself. Writing Till I’m Drunk & Confused reminded me that self-criticism doesn’t heal anything; compassion does. It helped me recognize that mistakes are part of being human, part of learning, part of evolving, and part of developing the emotional vocabulary that I write from.
It also strengthened my belief that people need kinder ways of coping — not just avoidance, not numbing, not punishment, but understanding. If my music can help someone recognize their own emotional cycles earlier than I did, if it helps them treat themselves with more compassion, or guides them toward healthier choices, then the song becomes more than a confession — it becomes a behavior change program.
So, the biggest shift is this: I view my past less as a collection of missteps and more as the groundwork for empathy. I’m learning, even now, to be kinder to myself. It’s a lifelong process, but it’s one worth committing to — and I hope my listeners can feel that in the music too.

13. Q What did creating this song teach you about yourself that you didn’t fully understand before?

Writing this song taught me how much I value emotional honesty — not only as an artist but as a human being. This song made me realize that I’m drawn to the truths people hide from themselves. I’m fascinated by the quiet corners of the human experience, the places where vulnerability and denial coexist. Writing this song allowed me to explore those layers more directly than I had before.
I think it reconfirmed that and gave me inspiration that others were connecting with it so beautifully. I think it touched people in the way that I hoped it would. And the comments and the press and the feedback I’ve received on it have been overwhelming — this song has touched many people. They see it, they feel it either for themselves or they’ve seen it in a loved one. We’ve all lost someone, and it’s something people can relate to whether they drink or not. Losing something you love, something important to you, and not being able to turn back the hands of time — that resonates.
We don’t get that movie monologue where a time machine fixes everything. We don’t get the moment of, “What if I go back and change this?” That’s not real life. The Hard Cold Truth is: life goes on. There are no do-overs. And so many people have resonated with that.